Walmart Worker Fired For Posting Joke On MySpace

Watch out, kids. Don’t try to be funny on the internet or you’ll be fired by Walmart.

David is Consumerist reader who works at Walmart. He was recently fired for posting a joke that mentioned Walmart on his MySpace. The comment:

The exact quote said “Drop a bomb on all the Walmarts, trailer parks, ghettos, monster truck shows, and retarded fake “pro wrestling” events, and the average I.Q. score would probably double.” This was a silly statement, but in no way was a threat as Walmart said and used as reason for my termination and denying my unemployment benefits. On my “Exit Interview” they checked Gross Misconduct – Integrity Issue (which they describe as: Theft, Violent Act, Dishonesty, or Misappropriation of Company Assets) as the reason I was fired. They wrote on the exit interview that it was a threat posted on website; which it clearly is not.

The Flint Journal (David’s local paper) has written up his story, but he also wrote us a letter. David seems like a nice guy, and is clearly dedicated to customer service. He’s received a personal thank you letter from the President of Walmart after a customer wrote Walmart to compliment them on David’s “service with a smile.”

Read David’s email inside.

To whom it may concern:

I was fired from Walmart on Feb. 27th 2007 for posting a joke on my myspace page that someone had copied, printed, and brought to managements attention. The exact quote said “Drop a bomb on all the Walmarts, trailer parks, ghettos, monster truck shows, and retarded fake “pro wrestling” events, and the average I.Q. score would probably double.” This was a silly statement, but in no way was a threat as Walmart said and used as reason for my termination and denying my unemployment benefits. On my “Exit Interview” they checked Gross Misconduct – Integrity Issue (which they describe as: Theft, Violent Act, Dishonesty, or Misappropriation of Company Assets) as the reason I was fired. They wrote on the exit interview that it was a threat posted on website; which it clearly is not. I have an exemplary customer service record and near perfect attendance. I even got a personal Thank You from the company President for a letter he received from a customer who was really impressed with the “service with a smile” attitude I brought to work consistently. During the termination Dean Genore the store manager who fired me even said that he knows me and that he knows I’m not that type of person, but since someone brought it to the walmart legal departments attention and they said: with the climate since the Columbine incident and the others that followed, that they had to fire me.

They denied my unemployment, so first I had to fill out a fact finding form and send that in to the Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA). Then I received a notice of determination from them saying I was disqualified for benefits under MES ACT, SEC. 29(1)(B). It reads :

“You were discharged from Walmart associates inc. on 2/27/07 for integrity issues. You had a posting on your personal website stating to “Bomb all the Walmarts” to increase the average IQ scores. Your conduct was not in the best interest of your employer.

It is found that you were fired for a deliberate disregard of your employers interest. You are disqualified for benefits under MES ACT, SEC. 29(1)(B).”

Then I had to request a redetermination,which required me to write a letter of protest clearly stating the reason I disagree with the determination. The following is that letter:

To whom it may concern:

I disagree with the determination and would like to request a redetermination. The reason I disagree is that the wording in the notice of determination was taken out of context. This is the exact sentence in the notice of determination I received: “You had a posting on your personal website stating to “Bomb all the Walmarts” to increase the average I.Q. scores.” The exact wording of the sentence posted on my myspace site is “Drop a bomb on all the Walmarts, trailer parks, ghettos, Monster truck shows, and retarded fake “pro wrestling” events, and the average I.Q. score would probably double.” It doesn’t state to do these things, it’s a joke saying if all those places suddenly didn’t exist the average I.Q. would probably double. I even sent a copy of the web page my employer printed up as the reason for my termination, so I don’t understand why the wording was taken out of context and made to appear as something other than a joke statement. I didn’t bring it in to work or even talk about it there, I believe a coworker that didn’t like me printed it up and brought it to managements attention to cause me hardship at work. This was not a deliberate disregard of my employers’ interest.

Sincerely,

David Michael Noordewier

If you have any advice, or can put me in touch with an interested lawyer, and/or help get this story “out there” to shame Walmart into doing the right thing; it would be sooo greatly appreciated.

Thank You so very much in advance.

Sincerely,

David Noordewier

This is really sad. We know a lot of Consumerist readers work at places like Walmart, and it’s sad to see one of them lose their job over something so silly! Does anyone have any advice for David?—MEGHANN MARCO

@gwong: “Free speech” is a misnomer. Go read the Bill of Rights and see what “free speech” actually is. The first amendment does not protect you from the consequences of saying something stupid.

For instance, if you constantly insult someone, don’t expect them to be your friend just because you explain to them that saying mean things about them is just you exercising your right to “free speech”.

@gwong: The first amendment protects you from the government, not private enterprises, nor from the ramifications of your speech. This is borderline inappropriate firing, IMO and IANAL. I’d seek legal advice to at least get the Unemployment benefits, but wouldn’t want to try to get my job back given the touchiness of the managers at that store.

The other problem: Wal*Mart is like IBM in the legal department, they WILL NOT SETTLE.

They will fight for every inch in court, even if it costs them 10x the money over what it would have cost to settle the claim, because they want every lawyer or potential litigant to think twice before suing, knowing that Wal*Mart’s “No compromise” policy can easily mean it costs the other side a huge amount of time and effort as well to win a fully legitimate suit, so unless its a $10M class action, don’t bother.

@acambras: It’s definately a guy. Read the first few posts, and it’s clear that it’s a gay man, likely late 20-something. BBCamerican’s REAL protection at this point is that he’s widely known and read. It wouldn’t be too hard for them to figure out which Wal-mart in the small area that was hit hard by hurricane Charlie has a gay man working part time exclusively at the service desk, after all.

@AlteredBeast:
Same here. I got into a huge argument with my manager (I was in the Photo Center) that turned into a huge argument with the District Manager, all because I had a sweatshirt in the photo lab. The district manager told me that she would have fired me for insubordination when I tried to explain the situation to her. That infuriated me, and I shouted, “Fine, you want to fire me? I quit!” and stormed off. About an hour later, I sheepishly went back to her and told her that I didn’t really want to quit; the next day, I gave myself the day off as a “decision day”, and when I returned the following day, I gave my two weeks’ notice. One of the best decisions I ever made.

I doubt the firing was really over those remarks. Considering how hard it is to fire unproductive people over something like that. Say someone’s lazy, you’ll have to have several documented performance reviews and written evidence you’ve made ‘effort’ in correcting the behavior. It’s far easier to fire over a little silly evidence since the hard evidence is there, than to wait a year or so for the performance reviews to come in.

If I were a Walmart manager, I wouldn’t fire because of a remark itself. If the guy is a productive worker, it’s best to keep him aboard then to find a replacement and go through rehiring someone else and retraining them. Of course denying unemployment benefits is pretty harsh though.

I’m sorry, but to work at Walmart and then say that “if you bombed all the Walmarts…” shows a complete lack of common sense. I know, it’s a joke. But it’s not funny and does bring into question the character of the employee.

Could Walmart have handled this with a little more common sense? Absolutely. Most companies would have told you to take it down and then followed-up with any number of options like writing some sort of reprimand and putting it into your employment file, possibly filed a police report, gave you a few days off without pay and then try to move along. But this is a long, tedious process for which Walmart probably hasn’t the stomach to accomplish. It’s an even more unappealing process considering that they can get rid of the employee and not have to do any of it and have someone else hired by noon.

David showed contempt not only for the company, but for its customers who, admittedly, are exactly the demographic he outlined in his joke. Yes, without question, I believe that every element in the joke is true. But it doesn’t belong on a the Myspace page of a Walmart employee regardless of how stupid the company and its core customers are.

It’s a tough lesson, but take heart in that you learned it before working for a company like General Motors or GE where you’re out the big bucks.

By the way, just delete your Myspace account now. It’s an utter waste of time and has absolutely no possible benefits to adults whatsoever.

@AlteredBeast:
I had a similar thing happen at Hertz…
Got fired because I bitched out a manager after 8 hours and not a single break, reminded him his job was also on the line for ignoring employees and denying us breaks, he said i was un-fired about 5 minutes later, and then I got called in to actually be fired by the location’s HR guy about a week later.

I’m going to amend my last sentence to be “…usually no benefits to most adults whatsoever”. I’m sure there’s some benefit to some people. I’m also sure someone is going to let me know what those are in this very thread.

@Toof_75_75: this is actually funny, cause there isn’t and the first amendment doesnt. It guarantees that the government wont pass a law restricting your right to free speech, but it says nothing about companies being allowed to fire you for speech they don’t like.

You can say anything you want and the government cant make a law banning what you say… but your boss is fully and legally allowed to fire your ass for doing it. This is why you should never post things you dont want haunting you on the internet. It WILL come back to bite you on the ass.

Boy he just shot himself in the foot. He works at Wal Mart, but yet he believes that if they were all bombed, then the I.Q. Score would double. Did this guy just call himself a retard? I posted an article up here about Wal Mart a while ago, but i dont work there. Lesson to be learned: DONT BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU!

Are we supposed to feel bad for somoene who gets fired for this? If you had an employee who said that about your company, and you could easily replace that person, wouldn’t you want someone else too? It’s called employment at will. It doesn’t take a genius to know there’s some risk in talking shit about your employer (or really, your coworkers in this case). Fired for a bomb threat? Maybe not. Fired for being a dumbass? More likely.

He publicly insulted Wal-Mart customers in the form of a violent fantasy. Why he thinks they would possibly continue to employ him is beyond me. Yeah, it was a “joke”. Forget the question of whether it was in poor taste (and it was), the indisputable fact is that you publicly mocked your employer’s patrons. I wouldn’t continue to be employed if I did that. Thinking that he could be doesn’t really speak to David’s IQ. I mean, is Consumerist really coming out in favor of employees being protected for violent fantasizing about their customers deaths? Its silly that David got himself fired, but the fault is all his own.

Seriously though, this situation just exposes the lack of logical human thinking on behalf of the company. Companies like that seem to make decisions that look good on paper, no matter how much they have to contort the truth to make it so.

Think about it this way, If your manager REALLY thought that your comment meant that you wanted to bomb walmart, then wouldn’t he think that firing you would give you a reason to bomb them? It’s common sense which has been completely circumvented in this situation in favor of either blind computer logic, or, more disturbingly, a system that operates based upon negative feedback of the machine: You say something bad about Walmart on your own time or ours, you loose your job.

I’m just glad I never posted some of the things that I said and thought when i was a waiter at Friendly’s. Given the response to this harmless joke, i think i would have had homeland security on me…

It’s been said, but free speech just means that you can say whatever you want, but it also means that your free speech ends where someone else’s liberty begins. In this case, it was Walmart’s liberty to fire you for saying something stupid in a public venue.

So any advice for David? Sure … don’t say that phrase “drop a bomb on” if you value your employment or even your freedom. He’s LUCKY he only lost his job.

Wal-Mart is a funny beastie. Did you know that Wal-Mart management is obligated to immediately fire anyone who uses vulgarity on the sales floor. Especially if it’s in front of customers. Why, all a person would have to do is report that so-and-so said a “bad word in front of my kids” and ask for the address of a general and a district manager to write. One complaint, two copies of a letter, and two 41 cent stamps could get somebody fired, true or not. The customer is always right.

David, you’re fired. You’re not going to get unemployment. If you think Wal-Mart’s system is unfair, you can’t fix it. I say “if you can’t beat them, join them.”

Other than that, the best thing you can do, short of perjury in an unemployment hearing, is just suck it up and get a new job.

Sounds like someone had an ax to grind with this guy. But I also agree with whomever said they wouldn’t have fired him if he was THAT spectacular of an employee. It sounds like this might’ve been the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak.

David better do himself a favor, find another job, and learned to keep his trap shut when making derogatory remarks about his employer. At least when they’re in print somewhere…

Actually, no, that is not all. Why does he even want his job back? If he hates the customers so much, shouldn’t he be glad it’s over? Shouldn’t he have quit ages ago?

When I was 16 years old, I worked at a grocery store down the street from my house. I hated my boss, and wanted to quit. My mom told me, “You can’t just quit a job because you hate your boss.” I quit anyway. I started working at the pizzeria further down the street.

In the 12 years which have passed since then, I still fail to understand what my mother meant. If you hate your job, quit. Period.

@Buran: Part of the problem is with a contingency case, the lawyer will do the math himself, and come up with an answer of “Even if I win, it will probably cost me more than the win”, combined with this would be a hard case to win.

There is a reason for a “We will fight on the beaches…” litigation strategy. Companies who DON’T follow such a strategy end up losing in the long run.

do you have a copy of the exit interview? do you have a copy of the employee handbook? the key here is determining whether or not your firing actually fits into the “Gross Misconduct – Integrity Issue” section that they fired you for. if you can prove that it doesn’t, then you’ve got a good shot at unemployment.

unfortunately, this should have been included in your request for a redetermination, so you may be beyond any help getting unemployment.

the funny thing about “employment at will” is that it is perfectly acceptable to fire someone for no reason whatsoever. when you give someone a reason for why they were fired, you better be damn sure your reason fits into the company’s definition or you can expose the company to all sorts of legal liabilities.

& as always, if you ain’t payin’ me, i am not your lawyer, so go solicit some real advice.

Just another example of internet Darwinism. It’s hard to feel bad for this guy. I was watching a segment on 20/20 on how employers are looking up potential employees on myspace and discarding them based on what they see. Another shining example of myspace Darwinism is a kid in upper Michigan, I read, posted pictures of his exotic plant/weed experiment on myspace and ended up getting hauled to jail. One word: duh.

There is a huge difference between “I’m going to bomb” and “If someone were to bomb” that the unemployment agency needs to consider. Walmart has the right to protect themselves, especially in this sue-crazy world. But the employment office needs to realize that his termination didn’t break any of the rules and is misrepresented.

I’m not too happy with the California unemployment offices. In my college days, I worked full-time at a sandwich shop called Port o’ subs. The manager gave the male employees less and less hours until finally we weren’t working at all. When I applied for a return on the employment insurance I paid as a full-time member of the community, they rejected my application and appeal because I was also enrolled as a full-time college student. I never did understand the logic behind that, but I do know that unemployment offices are out of touch with the services they are supposed to provide.

It was an asinine thing to write and he’s more the fool for thinking he should still be employed. Over the past year there have been a spate of bomb threats that have closed schools, etc in mid-Michigan. That type of stuff is disruptive regardless if he was joking. Any company would run him out the door for the simple fact that if they found out about this, let him keep working, and then something actually happened, the company would be screwed. I seem to remember some Consumerist posts blaring – SEX OFFENDER WORKING FOR AS HOME DEPOT INSTALLER! Could you imagine the headlines if Walmart let this guy keep working and he killed a bunch of people? They simply cannot take that chance.

Second of all you could tell them to prove that its something you did.

If i had your contact info and a few picture of you i could put up some political site about your status in congress. It doesn’t mean that you are actually in congress. But lets just belive everything on the internet is fact and judge people on their factless rambelings.

If anyone thought there was a serious threat, he’d have been investigated by the police. It seems clear that everyone knows exactly what David meant and that everyone knows that he clearly should be fired for those remarks. Well, everyone except David who is assuming a misunderstanding is responsible because he doesn’t want to accept responsibility for his incredibly stupid remarks.

…..He’s actually lucky he got fired. Walmart, in my state, just reduces employees it doesn’t like to 4 hours a week in perpetuity. They can’t claim unemployment because they aren’t unemployed. If they quit, they can’t collect, either.

…..I knew when I read the post that the
“poor victim” was headed for some snarky smackdown! Hopefully he now knows that talking bad about his bosses isn’t a good idea!

Well maybe firing him was wrong but some action should have been taken at his ignorance at least. I’m a respectable mother of four, graphic artist, writer and photographer.

I enjoy monster trucks, pro wrestling, and sin of all sins I actually shop at Walmart because with four kids no matter how much cash you bring in – diapers, formula, medicine and clothes are half the price there as any other store.

I think maybe he isn’t a bad guy – just an ignorant narrow minded twit.

If you dropped a bomb on all of the ignorant narrowminded twits – wars would end.

Wow, blaming it on Columbine is old school as hell. Someone should at least tell him about 9/11 or even Virginia Tech. I bet up until last year the manager was like “Well, with the climate after the Oklahoma City bombings…”

Were I in charge of the Walmart’s in question, I’d fire the guy, for cause, and would dispute his entitlement unemployment. He, despite being in a customer service position, called my customers morons. He demonstrated a lack of respect, politeness and basic common-sense. Perhaps, if he had kissed ass impressively enough, I might have been content to choose some lesser penalty. His whining is as misplaced as his apportionment of the blame.

This hyper-paranoia thing is getting out of hand. It is obvious it was a stupid joke. Don’t the powers-that-be at Walmart have more important thing to worry about than a joke posted on MySpace? Yet one more reason (out of 1,000s) to NOT shop at Walmart.

One more reason why Wal-Mart should go out of business. And besides, why should stuff he does on his own time in his employer’s best interest? Does that mean he can get fired to shopping at Target? Please. And unemployment insurance is a sham so politicians can point to it and pretend they’re actually doing something. They’re only interested in enslaving you for money. Don’t rely on someone else and make your own goddamn emergency fund, save for your own damn retirement, and educate your children yourself. IF you want something done right, don’t rely on the government, because they take 3 weeks to send papers through a building. By comparison, FedEx can send papers HALFWAY ACROSS THE WORLD in a week.

This reminds me of the time a guy I knew made a joke about firing a “Tom Cruise Missile” at a Church of Scientology compound. They threw a giant fit and he got arrested for making terrorist threats… heh. Wonder how Keith’s doing these days.

If trash-talking customers/clients/co-workers on your own time is a termination-worthy offense, then we’re going have a pretty damn huge labour crisis on our hands.

The guy’s only mistake was that he ranted online. If there were any actual human beings involved in reviewing his case, instead of corporate automatons, they’d have chalked the incident up as the online equivalent of ‘beer and bitching’ after work, and dealt with it as such.

(That being said, this is exactly why I don’t use sites like MySpace and FaceBook with anything resembling my real name.)

@Kierst_thara: Trash-talking your place of employment on your own time is fine. Its doing so publicly with an awful joke about how great it would be if your employers customers were killed isn’t. That’s the difference here. They aren’t firing him for shopping at Target on his own time. They aren’t firing him for making a stupid joke about wrestling fans. They aren’t firing him because they think he’s going to bomb the place. They are firing him because he insulted their patrons. OF COURSE they would fire him for that and of course they SHOULD fire him for that.

@BStu: Sure, it was a bad joke, and some bad judgement on David’s part, but I honestly don’t think the incident merits the crucification that he’s getting here.

I’d say the defining factor here is intent. If David had made his ‘joke’ to a customer while he was at work, or at the company picnic, or if he’d registered ‘BombAllWalmarts.com’ and handed out leaflets to all his co-workers, then sure, fire him. But it was a joke on MySpace. Who takes MySpace seriously? Pretty much only people who want to be pricks in situations like this.

Yes, if you put something on the internet, that makes it potentially public to everyone in the world, and there are plenty of people who are learning that the hard way, but there are also about a zillion other places where Walmart customers are being insulted, and firing David over his MySpace page certainly isn’t going to change that.

All I’m saying is that it just seems hypocritical and reactionary to get up on a high horse about ‘integrity issues’ when most of us are all guilty to one extent or another, and it’s only the ‘bad internets’ that’s the condemning factor in this particular case.

I agree that intent should be considered. Was the entire post about Walmart specifically or was it just included in the “joke”? In the end, if Wal-mart managers want to fire you for making a stupid joke about stupid people going to Wal-mart that is their decision. It does sound like this may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

As far as the comments regarding an employee’s right to do what they want on their own time….I disagree. I know that Wal-mart isn’t a “high profile” type of job but in the real world what you do on your “own time” can effect your employment regardless of where you work. I have a friend on the Fire Department. He can get fired from the Fire Department for getting drunk and acting like an idiot in public. The Department takes their public persona very seriously.

I think that in some instances, and I don’t count this myspace joke as one of them, employers have a right to fire you for something that was done “off hours”. I expect I will hear a certain amount of backlash because of that comment but there it is.

And if you don’t want your words coming back to bite you….don’t put them in print…don’t make them available to the entire world by broadcasting them on the net. Use your head.

Take it from a Walmart employee. This guy is lucky. Walmart is the worst company in the world to work for, and I have worked for several others before. McDonalds offers better pay, more hours and better benefits.

And while this joke was totally stupid, and not really funny, its true. People who shop at Walmart are not very smart, or they would have a job that makes enough money that they wouldn’t have to shop their. Although, I’ll also add that 99% of all employee’s of walmart are also stupid, since they work for the company that rips them off right in front of their face… and puts up with it.

Thing is, I can rant about Walmart and call them stupid because they can’t trace me.. I’m on a public computer, gave a fake email address and didn’t give any hint to my personal being.

Note to poster: If you wanna call your company dumb, be sure and do it anonymously.